The Didcot Railway Centre shop stocks an extensive range of books on railway and other transport topics.
All of these items are available from the shop when the Centre is open, or by post from: Great Western Retail Sales, Didcot Railway Centre, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 7NJ.
If you wish to purchase any items by mail order please use our order form (56kb .pdf file).
You can telephone the shop, when the centre is open, on: +44 (0) 1235-817200.
We can accept payment by cheque, payable to ‘Great Western Retail Sales’ (unless otherwise indicated), or by credit card.
A selection of more recent items is shewn below:
Branch Lines around Lydney, including Coleford and Lydbrook
Hardback, Portrait Format. Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith. Middleton Press.
Price: £17.45 (including UK postage)
Birmingham to Wolverhampton via Tipton (Midland Main Line)
Hardback, Portrait Format. Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith. Middleton Press.
Price: £17.45 (including UK postage)
Archibald Sturrock: Pioneer Locomotive Engineer
Paperback. Portrait Format. Tony Vernon. Tempus.
Price £17.49 (including UK postage)
The Fair Sex. Women and the Great Western Railway
Paperback. Portrait Format. Rosa Matheson. Tempus.
Price £15.49 (including UK postage)
A Triumph of Restoration: Oxford Rewley Road Station
Paperback. Landscape Format. Lance Adlam & Bill Simpson. Lamplight.
Price £12.45 (including UK postage)
In the Tracks of the “ACE” The Destruction of the Southern Network West of Salisbury
Paperback, Square Format. Jeffrey Grayer. Noodle Books.
Price £13.45 (including UK postage)
Rails to Newquay: Railways-Tramways-Town-Transport
Treffrey and Newquay tramways and the Cornwall Mineral Railway appear in this latest Oakwood title - 288 pages and 300 illustrations. Paperback. John Vaughan.
Price: £20.45 (including UK postage)
Branch Lines Around Ross-on-Wye
Includes a journey from Hereford to Grange Court, the Forest of Dean to Cinderford, Drybrook and Blakeney Goods Depot and finally a run from Ross to Lydbrook Junction. Hardback, Portrait Format. Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith. Middleton Press.
Price: £18.45 (including UK postage)
Shrewsbury to Newtown, including Minsterley, Snailbeach & Kerry
A journey into the centre of Wales with photos from many eras. Includes two long-closed branches and Snailbeach District Railway to various quarries. Hardback, Portrait Format. Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith. Middleton Press.
Price: £18.45 (including UK postage)
Western Region Signalling in Colour
In the 1970s through to the mid 1980s, when life-expired semaphore signalling was being replaced with colour light signals, the author travelled round recording the threatened signal boxes. Hardback, Kevin Robertson. Ian Allan.
Price: £18.49 (including UK postage)
MALLARD and the A4 Class
No, we know it's not G.W.R. but this is a large and lavishly illustrated book, published to celebrate the anniversary of a rather memorable event of 3rd July 1938! Hardback. David McIntosh. Ian Allan.
Price: £20.49 (including UK postage)
Devonport Dockyard Railway
Not a recent title (2nd Impression 2002), but as Didcot now owns a remarkable mixed gauge turntable from the Cornwall Railway days circa 1868, donated by the Dockyard, the title may be of interest. From its origins in 1860, this unique railway system quickly expanded to link three separate yards to the national network. At its zenith, more than twenty miles of trackwork were in constant use with, at one time or another, up to thirty steam locomotives. This is the definitive history with 200 illustrations. Hardback, Paul Burkhalter. Twelveheads.
Price: £28.50 (including UK postage)
Broad Gauge Locomotives
An outstanding volume covering for the first time every broad gauge locomotive ever operated in Britain - GWR and ‘Associated Companies’, independent lines, industrial concerns and railway contractors. Paperback, Geof Sheppard/Broad Gauge Society.
Price: £14.45 (including UK postage)
The Lambourn Branch - Revisited
A Unique perspective on an historic branch with a wealth of new material - with many undiscovered facts and unpublished photographs. Paperback. Kevin Robertson
Price: £14.45 (including UK postage)
The Railways of Pembrokeshire
Originally written by John Morris and Published in 1981, this is a fully revised and extended edition of what was regarded as the definitive history of railway development in West Wales. There are numerous photos never before seen. Hardback, Richard Parker.
Price: £28.50 (including UK postage)
Two Centuries of Railway Signalling
A new and fully updated revised 2nd edition of this definitive overview of Britain's railway signalling history. Hardback, Alan Williams & Geoffrey Kichenside.
Price: £28.49 (including UK postage)
The Changing Railway Scene - Western Region
A comprehensive look at the many diverse changes that affected the Western Region during its long and illustrious life from the 1955 Modernisation Plan through to 1986. Hardback. Laurence Waters.
Price: £20.49 (including UK postage)
BR Blue No. 2 - Western Region South & West
A new colour album featuring the former Western Region through the decades of great change and development, recording an era which has now disappeared entirely. Paperback. John Dedman.
Price: £13.45 (including UK postage)
Railway Voices of Swindon Works
An affectionate record of life inside ‘the factory’ - interviews and extracts from workers throughout all departments and eras. The author has also written books on the annual Swindon ‘trips’ and the employment of women in the G.W.R. Paperback. Rosa Matheson.
Price: £15.49 (including UK postage)
A new book to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Great Western Society at Didcot Railway Centre. It includes a fascinating insight into Didcot's development as a railway junction, before the Society's arrival, with a lavishly illustrated account of the developments that have taken place over the last 40 years.
Written by Michael H.C.Baker, who has been editor of the Society's journal Great Western Echo since 1973 and another long standing member John Villers.
ISBN 1-900467-34-8. Hardback, landscape format. 104 pages with 296 illustrations.
Price: £16.95 (including post & packing within UK, add £2.50 from Europe, £5.00 rest of world).
Please make cheques payable to ‘The Didcot Story’.
The long accepted ‘facts’ of locomotive history are sometimes almost pure fiction in their representation of what happened. Over the last fifteen years it has been accepted that there is still a great deal to discover. This is no less true of the GWR than any other railway and the author takes advantage of new research to re-examine several well known episodes from Swindon's history and puts them under close inspection which brings to light surprising new information about one of Britain's greatest railway works.
Written by L.A.Summers this book has just been published by the Great Western Society, and is available only from the Didcot Railway Centre shop.
Softback, portrait format. 156 pages with well over 100 illustrations, many of which have never appeared in print or have not been seen for many years.
Price: £14.14 (including UK postage).